Nurse Educator Highlights The Importance Of Nurses During National Nurses Month
Nurse Educator Highlights The Importance Of Nurses During National Nurses Month
By Tia Carol Jones
Tyra L. Dean-Ousley, EdD, MSN, FPA, FNP-BC, known as Dr. Tyra, was encouraged to become a nurse by her son’s grandmother. She entered the field because she wanted to take care of people and make a difference. She didn’t become a nurse for any notoriety or fame, she wanted to be able to show up when people needed her the most.
“The greatest reward is that you show up when people are the most vulnerable and they can trust you. They trust that you are going to help them, advocate for them and support them. That is why I became a nurse,” Dean-Ousley said.
May is National Nurses Month. Dean-Ousley said nurses can be found in every industry a person can think of. There are nurses in sports, hospitals, community settings and ambulatory care settings.
Dean-Ousley said that while it is important to highlight May as National Nurses Month, nursing is a 365-day job. She said the role of a nurse is pivotal. They advocate for patients, students and make things happen for communities, families and any other setting a person can think of.
“I define it as we are unsung heroes. The pandemic highlighted that, when it was the nurse that had to be the one that ran interference when families couldn’t come in,” she said. It is the nurse that has spent eight to twelve hours with a family member, when someone goes into the hospital, she added.
After receiving her foundational training as a nurse at Olivet Nazarene University, she became an administrator and got into nursing education. She received her doctorate in education from North Central University. Being in nursing education and administration gave her a chance to see students who looked like her. The issues and problems she faced as a student still existed. She felt like it was her duty and responsibility to help, give back and support. It led her to launch the Count Me In Campaign.
As a nurse of thirty years and a nurse educator for twenty-two years, Dean-Ousley has seen nursing students struggle to buy textbooks, which can increase in price. With the Count Me in Campaign and a book scholarship, she wants to provide nursing students with the resources to be successful.
“Nurses save lives and if we don’t start with our students, we won’t have the nurses at the bedside. That is where it counts the most, ensuring the nurses we are preparing have what they need to be successful,” she said. “Nurses are superheroes, they’re unsung heroes and we can’t make it in this world without us.”
Dean-Ousley believes that being educated about your health and making annual wellness visits a priority are some of the ways Chicagoans can make health a priority. She said parents take their children to annual health check-ups and somewhere around eighteen to forty years old, people drop off going to their annual visits. She said people might not go to visit the doctor because they don’t feel sick. She thinks that families can establish the importance of prioritizing health and “health is wealth” early on, so that people don’t fall off from going to the doctor. She added that people need to know their baselines and the best way to do that is with annual visits.
For more information about the Count Me In Campaign, visit www.CountMeInCampaign.com. For more information about Dr. Tyra L. Dean-Ousley, aka Dr. Tyra, EdD, MSN, FPA, FNP-B
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